“So…I am moving to Austin,” says a post on Andre Natera’s Facebook page. As first reported on SideDish, he has accepted a position at Omni Barton Creek Resort and Spa. I’m very sad to hear it, as I’ve been a big fan ever since the two-time The Best in DFW: Chef (2011, 2012) took charge of the Pyramid Restaurant in 2010. There he helped the restaurant earned four stars in a 2011 review. More recently, he was executive chef at Village Kitchen and Toko V, the Highland Park Village sister restaurants that recently closed. Natera will be cooking as a guest chef at Battuto in Far North Dallas on Tuesday, April 8.

Why do restaurants close? Is it a cursed location, or rents that are too high, or changes that confuse diners?

No doubt all these things come into play. I do think the exorbitant parking fees at One Arts Plaza probably puts many diners off; meanwhile, high rent makes any business a challenge.

But there’s a much more elemental reason restaurants fail: They’re not working. The menu at the Greek was too timid, and the commercial pita bread it served was terrible. It’s the Arts District, for crying out loud — let’s not have moussaka be the most exotic dish at a Greek restaurant there, one that feels cold and corporate. Cafe des Artistes, in trying to appeal to everyone with its “Cali-Euro inspired menu” appealed to no one — at least no one I know. The service was largely unprofessional, the wine list a depressing, overpriced document and little care was taken with the food. The dining room looked like a bordello — and not even a nice one.

An escolar roll at Toko V

And the two restaurants at Highland Park Village? I think they failed because they gave their Park Cities diners what the restaurateurs imagined the diners wanted, rather than something that came from the heart of the very talented chef, Andre Natera. The menu at Village Kitchen, as I wrote in my review, was emphatically conformist. At Toko V, the dishes were mostly same-old, same-old Asian fusion. When I fact-checked my December review of Toko V, the management told me the menu was based on what customers were saying they wanted — including escolar (which can cause gastrointestinal disturbances), bluefin tuna (which is headed toward extinction) and a panoply of sticky-sweet sauces and yuzu-drenched concoctions.

Consistency in execution was a problem at all four places, but I feel that more than anything, the problem was that these restaurants felt like they were more about making money than making something delicious to eat that we haven’t eaten a million times before. The one thing missing from all of them was originality. Which isn’t to say simple food can’t be great — it absolutely can. But if simple food is going to be great, it has to be, you know, great.

With the pace of openings having reached such a frenzy in the past year, it won’t be surprising if we see more closings in the next six months or so. With so many restaurants to choose from, Dallas diners wield more and more power with their dining dollars. And more and more, they’re demanding something authentic, something unusual, something real, something from the heart. Give us something cynical, and no, we won’t bite. At least not for long.
Follow Leslie on Facebook

If you are a fan of Village Kitchen and Toko V, you've missed last supper.

Two newish Highland Park Village restaurants, the Asian place Toko V and the family-friendly Village Kitchen, are closing.

The upstairs/downstairs pair in the high-rent area will shutter March 29, verified Brian Twomey, co-owner of Twomey Concepts, which operates the restaurants in addition to the Common Table in Uptown.

[UPDATE: The original closing date was March 29, but both restaurants were shuttered on March 26 instead. “The reason we were staying open for two weeks was just to make sure our employees were able to find new jobs,” says Brian Twomey, co-owner of Twomey Concepts. They did find new jobs, and by mid-week, hardly anyone was left to work the restaurant’s last days, he says.

Toko V and Village Kitchen are now closed for good.]

Chef Andre Natera will stay on with the company and is assisting Twomey and co-owner Mark Hearl in searching for a new address for a restaurant — probably in “central Dallas,” Twomey says.

“From a business standpoint, we have a better chance somewhere else,” Twomey says. He also wants to fixate on a more casual dining experience. “It’s a harder environment these days to do fine dining, and frankly our chefs like to do things that are more approachable,” he says.

“If you’re going to do that kind of business, you need to be in a place that fits that economic profile.”

Village Kitchen and Toko V were formerly a single restaurant, Village Marquee Texas Grill and Bar. And for a time, celebu-chef Tre Wilcox (who appeared on Top Chef) ran the kitchen.

Eight months after losing André Natera, just after he was named one of the Best in DFW: Chefs for his work there, the Pyramid Restaurant – and the Fairmont Dallas hotel — have finally announced they’ve hired a new executive chef: Brian Armstrong. Armstrong, a native of Ottowa, Canda, began his career as a chef when he went to work for Fairmont Hotel and Resorts in 2002, and he’s been working for the hotel group every since. His latest gig was as executive sous chef at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess in Scottsdale, Arizona. His new position at the Pyramid is his first as executive chef.

It’s curious that Fairmont didn’t engage someone with a somewhat higher profile for this high-profile post. On the other hand, André Natera wasn’t exactly a household name when he started running that kitchen.

Armstrong expects to introduce new breakfast and lunch menus later this month, and his new dinner menu in early September.

Pyramid Restaurant and Bar also have a new director of food and beverage: Yvon Lambert. Lambert’s resume includes stints at the former Fairmont New Orleans, the Fairmont Chateau Laurier and the Fairmont Olympic. The talented and affable Hunter Hammett continues to serve as sommelier. The restaurant is still without a pastry chef; Fairmont public relations and marketing manager Katie Norwood tells me by email that the hotel is in the process of interviewing candidates for the position.

The naming of Armstrong as executive chef coincides with major renovations at the Fairmont, whose refurbished guest rooms are scheduled to be finished at the end of August, with meeting space renovations to be completed at the end of December.

The Pyramid Bar has had a makeover, too, and its bartenders have been working with Seattle’s Liquid Kitchen to create new cocktails.

So, $60,000 question: What about that dreary dining room? Norwood says the Fairmont plans to renovate the restaurant in the future, but in the interim there will be “will undergo subtle design and artistic modifications to the dining room.” They include “updated decor and tabletop presentation” and — yes, this was imperative — “the concealing of the buffet area in the evening.” The sight of those steam tables during dinner used to be real appetite-suppressants.

Over the weekend, a friend tipped me off that André Natera has been making cronuts at Village Marquee Texas Grill and Bar. Yes, cronuts — real ones. But Natera isn’t keen on calling them that. “We have been working on something similar to a cronut for the Village Kitchen when it opens,” he says. “We have done a few different iterations and landed on one that is more like a churro.” I know what you’re thinking — it’s not really a cronut, which is laminated (croissant) dough, deep-fried and rolled in flavored sugar. But what is Natera’s exactly? “It is croissant dough fried and dusted with cinnamon sugar and served with hot chocolate sauce,” says the modest chef. Aha! That’s a cronut.

They will be offered tomorrow through Saturday as a dessert special at Village Marquee. And then look for them at Village Kitchen, when it opens.
Follow Leslie on Facebook

Any changes in store for the French Room, since the Adolphus has a new owner? Not while it's so warm out.

As summer stretches ahead, it’s hard not to dream of being in some glorious hotel somewhere for a luxe vacation. Whether or not that’s in the stars for any of us is a matter of luck (or for the lucky ones, choice, perhaps). But here in Dallas, a number of hotel dining rooms seem to be on their own kind of vacation, or forced hiatus, or not exactly pushing their creative agenda forward full speed ahead. Call it the summer hotel dining room dawdle.

Wondering what Tim Bevins will cook up in the Front Room? Let's discuss in September.

Two hotels are missing executive chefs. Tim Bevinsleft Rick’s Chophouse, the restaurant at the Grand Hotel in McKinney, more than a month ago; owner Rick Wells still has not announced a replacement. Bevins took over the kitchen at The Front Room: A Park Cities Diner — the restaurant at the Lumen hotel — shortly thereafter, but he doesn’t seem to be in any great hurry to introduce his own menu. “I’m just getting the kitchen clean, getting everything set up, working slowlly, doing a fish special here, figuring out the staff,” he told me in a phone interview two weeks ago. “It’ll be the end of summer before we figure out what what we’re doing.” You’d almost think he was picking up the pieces of a 100-year-old institution that needed a complete redo, not a shiny, chic boutique hotel that was just revamped. The Front Room is not yet ten months old. That’s summer for ya.

Meanwhile, the Pyramid Restaurant has been without an executive chef since Andre Nateraleft last October; nor has the Fairmont Dallas hotel’s management replaced pastry chef Maggie Huff, who decamped to FT33 in April. The hotel is undergoing major renovations, with plans to have them completed at the end of lazy, languid August.

The Stoneleigh, another important Dallas hotel, changed hands last summer, when it became the Luxe Stoneleigh hotel. The hotel’s dining room, formerly known as Bolla, slowly morphed into T/X — featuring Texas cuisine hotel-style, with few decor changes, but a new chef, Marcelo Vasquez. When I visited in late December, my table was the only one occupied. In January it changed hands again, and now it is Le Meridien Dallas, the Stoneleigh. The restaurant is still T/X. Will Starwood International, the Stoneleigh’s new owner, make any move to put in a destination restaurant? They don’t seem to be in any hurry. (I tried to get updates from both the Stoneleigh and the Pyramid, but publicists were off today. Summer vacay, doncha know?)

And speaking of not in any hurry, there’s the grandest dame of all Dallas hotels: The Adolphus. The downtown landmark, which celebrated its 100th birthday last year, was sold in late December to an investment company, RockBridge Capital LLC. But as Steve Brown reported shortly after the sale, though a makeover has been considered “past due” for the hotel, RockBridge was not in any hurry to shake things up; RockBridge managing director John Rosen told Brown we shouldn’t look for any physical changes for “at least a year.” The magnificent French Room is a Dallas treasure, and I’ve been clamoring for a long time for something more gastronomicallly engaging than what’s been offered there for the last few years. Who knows whether that’s in the stars, or just fantasy. If big changes were to come to pass, I’d bet a bundle that it won’t be anytime this summer.

The dining room currently known as Village Marquee Texas Grill and Bar will soon get a makeover and a new name

On Wednesday, Side Dish reported on big changes coming to Village Marquee Texas Grill and Bar. I checked in with co-owner Mark Hearl and chef André Natera, and most, but not all, of what Side Dish reported was correct. The restaurant will close around August 7, according to Hearl, and only for about a week; the plan is to reopen the downstairs dining room as Village Kitchen around August 15. About a month later the upstairs dining room will reopen as a sushi bar called Toko V, with Daniel Chau as sushi chef. Chau was formerly head sushi chef at Steel, according to Hearl.

Downstairs, those big square booths will be pulled out of the dining room, which will be redesigned: “We’re looking at wooden floors, wooden tables — more casual,” says Natera. “Kind of what you’d get in a butcher shop, with big rolls of white butcher paper we could write the specials on daily.” It’ll be “a lot more approachable in terms of ambience,” he says.

And the food sounds like it’ll be approachable, too — and playful and fun. Yes, there’ll be a burger — Natera says he’s been working on a house-ground short rib-brisket-chuck number: “a dripping wet burger that’s delicious and juicy.” He’s been working on a fried chicken recipe, as well, to be served with bacon-and-chive waffles. And there’ll be steak frites.

André Natera's jazzed-up lobster Thermidor will be the Friday special

But it sounds like it’ll get much more creative than that, with dishes that “can resonate, but be chef-driven and playful,” as Natera puts it. For instance, he’s making a mousse inspired by dim sum shrimp dumplings that he’ll use to coat corn dogs, to be served with Sriracha and Chinese ketchup.

There’ll be salads, too, like a peach and Burrata salad, and grilled watermelon salad with pickled onions and local greens.

Nightly specials will be part of the picture, including nightly pasta specials. “We’re trying not to go the fine dining route,” says Natera, but the Friday night special will be lobster Thermidor jazzed up with corn kernels and chipotle, which the chef will serve with mac and cheese topped with lobster-stock-flavored corn bread crumbs. Wednesdays will star “My Pet Pig Rosie,” a special named for a pig owned by one of the sous-chefs — “pork belly or a pork loin, or we’ll make our own guanciale.”

Upstairs you’ll be able to get traditional nigiri sushi and rolls sitting at the sushi bar. Or sit at a table and sample some of the raw fish dishes Natera’s been working on, along with other “global-inspired Asian Food — things like a Thai green papaya salad, Korean-style barbecue ribs made with baby back ribs, or a chicken moo shoo, but my version. Malaysian laksa in addition to ramen. Kind of what David Chang has done at Momofuku, or Mission Chinese.”

There are lots of changes afoot at the Fairmont Dallas, whose Pyramid Restaurant just lost its pastry chef. Six months after losing its executive chef, André Natera, the hotel has still not hired a replacement; now the restaurant, which earned a four star review in 2011, is without two key players. According to marketing director Katie Norwood, executive sous chef Cameron Handler is running the kitchen for now, including the pastry side. A new food and beverage director, Yvon Lambert, was hired in early March.

The hotel is now undergoing a $10 million renovation, which will include enhancements to the guest rooms, meeting spaces and the Pyramid Bar, which will get new furniture and decor. But at the moment there are no plans for changes in the dining room, which I called “deadly dull” in my review. “Not only does it not convey a sense of occasion,” I wrote, “it has ‘hotel dining room’ written all over it. One side is flanked by a buffet room that’s vacant at dinnertime, with a view of dormant steam tables. The other side is marginally less depressing.” Norwood says that as the renovation process continues — it’s scheduled to be finished in August — that may change. “It is possible that the scope of the renovation may evolve in the next few months,” she says. If Inland American Lodging Group, which bought the hotel in 2011, decides to engage an executive chef and pastry chef with talent at all commensurate to that of their predecessors, they should give their new chefs a more appealing dining room in which to show off their skills.

As you may have read, André Natera, the talented chef who until recently was top toque at Pyramid Restaurant, is now executive chef at Village Marquee Texas Grill and Bar, the clubby dining room attached to the Village Theater in Highland Park Village. That’s the subject of this week’s review. Meanwhile, Mark Vamos visited 20 Feet Seafood Joint, the new casual fish spot from another renowned chef, Marc Cassel. Have you been to either restaurant? What did you think? We’d love your reaction to our reviews, too. Please let us know in a comment.

First courses include some intriguing raw dishes, liked smoked hamachi tartare with pink grapefruit “margarita”, jalapeño, cabbage and tortilla; achiote-cured salmon in charred tomato water with cucumber and toasted chile threads; and Thai shrimp ceviche. There are also “baked potato” gnocchi and “creamed spinach” ravioli – both spins on steak house classics — and a scallops and bacon surf-and-turf appetizer. And hey, doesn’t aparagus risotto with artichokes, morels and parmesan sound like a harbinger of spring? Meanwhile, a burrata salad with speck seems to handle the winter tomato blues by using “semi dried baby” tomatoes. Smoked beet salad with faro, hazelnuts, smoked ricotta and mache sounds sensible and sophisticated.

Main courses still include a selection of Beeman Ranch (and a couple other) steaks, but gastromonic adventuers will want to check out the more dishes like charred lamb loin with cilantro risotto, egg and ancho demiglace, or crispy seared halibut with shiitakes, snap peas and wasabi pea sauce.

There are definitely references back to former chef Tre Wilcox‘s last menu there – in the smoked hamachi tartare (Wilcox was doing a smoked Japanese hamachi tartare layered with crabmeat and a tomato-habanero pico), crispy duck spring rolls and Texas shrimp and grits.